F.A.L.T.U: Youthful but doesn’t deliver

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The movie is about four friends, three of whom barely manage to pass in school and are not admitted into any college.

To fudge it to their parents, they create a fake university — Fakirchand and Lakirchand Trust University — and hence the title acronym – F.A.L.T.U

The fake university is conceived, complete with a website and logo, by the fourth friend — a geek. The building, principal and fake crowd, and later lots of other things, are conjured up by ‘Google Chand’ Arshad Warsi.

Too many lame dialogues and unnecessary songs later you have an institution trying to preach novelty of ideas, uselessness of examinations, assessment and following one’s heart.

The idea on which the story has been based is surely worth talking about, but the film miserably fails to put it forth. The screenplay is loosely strung with inconsequential one-liners delivered with equal indifference.

Fine actors such as Boman Irani and Mithun Chakraborty are wasted while Riteish Deshmukh as Principal Baaji Rao is barely funny.

The four friends seem confused throughout about what to do, while Jackky Bhagnani comes to the rescue with tubelight ideas, deemed profound by the principal, Google and the rest.

The geek leaves the best college in town and joins the fake university so that he can have fun while his super-rich influential father talks as if a mountain was bearing down on his chest.

The attempt at making the setting youthful, chic, cool and fun is successful only so long as the costumes and the colours go. Unlike the rest of the film, the final dance performance is beautifully done and Remo D’Souza, making his debut as director, should take it as a challenge to train himself in the art.

His skill as a choreographer is evident in the performance which sums up the entire movie far more crisply than the two hours put together.

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I am a multimedia journalist with Reuters India. I am based in New Delhi and write on Bollywood, books and lifestyle. Prior to this, I have covered the Indian film industry as a television journalist in Mumbai. I'm on Twitter at @AnujaJaiman